Tag Archives: supply chain management

China’s Borders Reopen to all + What is Applying for a Business Visa like? [Podcast]

Renaud and Adrian from Sofeast share the positive news that China is reopening its borders to all travellers today, March 15th 2023, because they are starting to issue tourist visas now. After 3 years of Covid-driven entry restrictions, we look … Continue reading

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Exploring Apple’s Chinese supply chain and manufacturing success, but are they too reliant on China? [Podcast]

Renaud and Adrian explore how Apple built a successful Chinese supply chain, how they control bringing new products to market, and whether its ‘reliance’ on China might be a double-edged sword. Their ‘best practices’ could benefit SMEs who are also … Continue reading

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9 Cost-Cutting Measures Importers Will Love! [Podcast]

Renaud and Adrian cover a topic that most importers, regardless of where they are manufacturing in the world, will value: cost-cutting! There are 9 measures you could use to reduce your business costs here ranging from fairly low-hanging fruit, such … Continue reading

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7 Reasons Why Your Supplier Won’t Let You Visit Their Factory

Around 10 to 20% of the time suppliers demand payment from our clients before they allow an auditor, or even just a visitor, to visit the factory. As you can imagine, this makes factory audits and quality inspections difficult! Let’s … Continue reading

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How To Get Transparency And Control Over Your Supply Chain? [podcast]

Sofeast’s CEO Renaud and Adrian from the team get together to discuss how and why to improve your visibility over your supply chain. NOT knowing who produces your components, materials, or even assembles your products can land you in hot … Continue reading

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6 best Practices When Working With Contract Manufacturers In China

As we’ve written before, importers have a choice of supplier types when sourcing a manufacturer to outsource production to in China. Let’s assume that you’ve discounted working with an OEM or ODM, and your focus is on finding contract manufacturers … Continue reading

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Sofeast’s Top 10 Blog Posts Of 2021

2021 has been an eventful year, to say the least! Here at Sofeast, we have continued to publish regular blog posts in order to provide advice for everyone who has outsourced manufacturing, supply chains in Asia, new products in development, … Continue reading

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My Supplier Keeps Going Missing, Even When We Have Orders In Progress! | Disputes With Chinese Suppliers Q&A (Volume 10)

It can be very frustrating when a Chinese supplier isn’t responding to your messages when you have an order that you’ve already paid for in production, have urgent issues to discuss, or simply want to place an additional order. Unfortunately, … Continue reading

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Plastic, Silicone, Steel, and Others: Updated China Raw Materials Costs (August ’21)

Here’s an August update to add to our posts on the costs of China raw materials this year (2021) when many importers have been dismayed by rising raw material prices. For this reason, we’re trying to give you some visibility … Continue reading

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Lead Time Reduction Strategies [Podcast]

In This Episode… Our CEO Renaud Anjoran delves into lead time reduction strategies and more with Adrian from the team. We talk about why reducing lead times is an important goal for importers, what benefits you can expect to enjoy, the … Continue reading

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